To the editor: Of course Southern California Edison wants a rate hike to pay for the damage its equipment was found to have caused in separate wildfires in 2017 and 2018. There’s no reason that the company’s shareholders should pay if it can be pinned on ratepayers.

Pacific Gas & Electric got away with the same thing after a fire caused by its equipment burned down much of the town of Paradise, Calif., in 2018.

These utility companies should be public, just like the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, or SMUD, which took decades to break away from PG&E’s sphere. The SMUD answers to ratepayers rather than shareholders. Rates are lower, and the utility has a good record of putting in renewables such as wind.

California made a pact with the devil when it took the cheap way out and let private utilities be formed.

Diane Lynch, Tiburon, Calif.

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To the editor: Edison should not get approval to increase rates to its customers for something that was the company’s fault.

Instead of getting its customers to pick up the tab, Edison should stop paying dividends to stockholders until the money for equipment upgrades is recouped. Maybe then there would be more accountability for damages.

Eric Garnier, Ventura